Project plan

Project team members must perform certain activities to achieve project goals in set time frames. Project activities can be phases, work packages, tasks, milestones...

Preparing project schedule and Gantt-chart is simultaneous with task and activity allocation to team members. All corrections (dates, content) are available to team members in real time, with no delays.

All information is archived, organized and available to use. All communication can be also sent by e-mails.

Project course is scheduled in 4PM and at the same time tasks and assignments are allocated to 4PM users in a transparent manner (in 4PM and by e-mail).

How to plan project schedule

Project schedule (Gantt-chart) is made by the use of phases, tasks and milestones:

phase is created by clicking the icon ,

task click ; to delegate task to one or more team members it should be assigned to project participants (add).

milestone click ,

meeting click

Import and Export to Excel

click to add child activity to phase.

Management of project phases

Phase can be:

a group of similar project activities (work package, WP)

group of activities in narrower time limit

smaller project (sub project)...

New phase

click icon to open form.

enter phase name and abbreviation

select head of phase (from the list of participants),

planned hours of work (optional)

planned start and end date

and short description.

Each phase can have any number of sub-phases.

Head of the phase receives milestone for the phase end date.

Phase and cost planning and cost monitoring

financial plan and cost can be monitored at the level of individual phases.

If financial plan is inserted first, later added phases inherit planned costs types in the value of 0. In this case, you can monitor the level of implementation of each phase, a comparison of the plan and implementation is at the level of the project.

Financial plan and implementation can be monitored on the level of individual phase (work package).

daily reporting on work progress - each team member can access all relevant task information: task due date, allocated time and time spent, task progress of co-workers. Simple reporting forms enable time effective daily reporting and communication tool. Once a task is completed, a status is changed and notification sent to project manager.

New task

Click icon to open form. New tasks can be added in My 4PM/Insert/new task.

select activity for task performance. Use list of project activities.

enter task name (short description).

set start and end date for the task.

if activity has set general duration (please check General/classification/list of activities) then application suggests end date (it can be changed)

if warning display for dates is on, then all dates must be within parent activity (phase, project)

if task does not have planned end date and allocated hours, it cannot used for resource load planning.

Manual - each task participant enters personal estimation, which can be different from automatic.

Colours of task progress

blue:

Manual <= Automatic (Task progress is faster or the same as planned)

closed assignments: 100 % progress

orange:

Automatic >= Manual (Task progress is slower)

reported hours <= allocated hours

red:

Automatic > Manual (Task progress is slower)

reported hours > allocated hours

Some task may have multiple assignments (more task participants). Task progress is calculated as average of all assignments. Assignments with more allocated hours have higher value. If task has no allocated hours, than only approximate value of progress is given, based on % progress and hours done.

Status of tasks, milestones

allocated - new task that user should accept first in order to be able to report hours.

done - assignee has done the task. Project managed needs to close or reject task (return to assignee). Assignee can cancel the status to accepted until it is closed.

closed - Project manager has reviewed done task and can close it for work reporting and editing. Project manager can close and evaluate the task, confirm eligible project hours.

green - task was done in due date

reed - task was late

Important

Project manager can any time close the task, regardless its status. By closing the task, no editing or reporting on hours spent is possible.

Changes of task status are accessible at "show changes to task statuses".

E-mail notifications on new and changed milestones, tasks

E-mail settings are set in general settings of the application

off: no e-mail are sent,

automatic: sends e-mail to all participants on the task and to project manager

manual: new button is added SAVE AND NOTIFY - user can select who to sent notification. If you don't select and recipient, activity is saved and no e-mail is sent.

Task relations

Task can be interconnected. Child task is connected to parent task in tab of task pop-up: CORRELATIONS

End date of parent task must be one day before start date of child task.

If a task has allocated hours (or has status accepted) it is not possible to change task duration. Tip: First plan tasks with relations, later add task participants.

task relations are possible only within a phase

task assignee cannot accept child task until parent task is closed.

if child task has hours entered, parent task cannot be re-opened.

If a task has child task, than end date of parent task cannot be changed.

Task can be edited if you remove correlations first, edit tasks and re-attach correlations.

Milestones

Milestones are point in project course. It can be:

stand alone milestone

end date of the phase (automatic)

end date of task

Each milestone has one assignee.

Add new milestone

Click to open a form.

select activity,

enter description

select organization and assignee

set end date.

If milestone repeats, select frequency of repetition and end date of the repetition.

Meetings

Meetings are special type of project task with additional functionality that connect them to Calendar (Outlook)

New meeting

Project meetings are organized in 4PM by clicing to open form:

select activity (meeting, board meeting),

enter meeting subject (task name),

enter task venue

date, start and end hours,

enter description and attach link to documents ,

select meeting participants (send invitation to)

and save.

4PM verifies the availability of participants in 4PM calendar (absence, another meeting). Once you save, 4PM sends e-mail invitation to Calendar (Outlook) and in My 4PM Calendar. Participants can enter hours for accepted meeting.

E-mail notifications for meetings

General application settings

ON – meeting invitation is sent to meeting invitees. Invitation can be accepted in Calendar and confirmation is sent to meeting organizer.

OFF – no e-mail is sent, meeting appears only in 4PM.

Meeting Confirmation

General setting: DEFAULT INITIAL STATUS OF MEETINGS

planned: meeting must be confirmed

confirmed

Integration with mail client

Invited participants of the meeting receive meeting invitation.

Invitation can be accepted or rejected in the e-mail client calendar. Reply is sent to organizer's mail.